


The Devil Take the Hindmost

by n7s



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Endgame, One Shot, batman: endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7s/pseuds/n7s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loose interpretation of what I believe happened to Bruce after the cave came down during the final moments of Endgame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil Take the Hindmost

The pain is the last thing he notices.

Maybe because before everything turned dark he was already hurt (badly), or maybe because he's so used to getting injured that a part of his brain stalled his pain receptor nerve endings, deciding there are more important things to focus on. Like the steady leaking noise coming somewhere from his right, or a continuous low rumble that has vibrated throughout his chest for the last hour. The latter's rather surprising, he thinks, since he could swear he doesn't have a chest cavity anymore. By the way the pressure of something incredibly heavy lying atop of him makes it hard to breathe, he imagines a hole of flesh and crashed bones in place of where his lungs should be.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

He's counted minutes upon minutes based on that noise. He tried to tell himself to shut up and stop doing that, stop trying to survive— _It's time you rested_ —but his brain thinks he's still fighting. He isn't, he keeps reminding himself again and again, but it hasn't worked. Two hours and twenty-six minutes since he regained consciousnesses. He doesn't know how many he was taken out (he couldn't; there was no _drip. drip. drip._ in his sleep) and that's a comfort: no need to hold on to too much information right now.

He _has_ a plan for this. He knew how this was going to end so the cave falling on top of them had been thought of. _Expected_ even, what with his familiarity with the destructiveness of their dance. An exit was in the schematics he memorized and, even now, he can recall the blueprints brought up on the huge computer monitor, white lines and digital notes decorating it like a big art piece. The cave—his cave—lighting up like a drive-in theater.

_“Are you sure this is going to work?”_

_“It better.”_

_“_ It better _, really?”_

_“Julia—”_

_“Don't Julia me. You've been a royal pain in my ass all this time about being prepared and doing my best and bunch of other motivational crap that belong in a military boot camp. “It better” isn't good enough. You're bloody Batman, “you better” make this work.”_

_“Okay. I will.”_

_“Okay.”_

And he did. He tricked the clown long enough to make his way through Gotham's cave system and follow the path the Joker most likely traveled after falling off the cliff all that time ago. He found the Dionesum and lasted long enough so the cure could get to his family and city. He made it work so everything after that didn't matter, because they were safe. They are safe.

He made it work.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

After forty-six more drops, he decides to move. He takes his time, clenching his teeth every time pain shoots up all over his body, and with a kick of both his legs that makes him almost faint from discomfort, he's set free. The boulder he threw on the side breaks off with a thunderous resonance that makes the enclosed space moan. There's still darkness all around him like before, but now he can make the shapes of surfaces, even if barely, on his left and right. Rocks everywhere, big and smaller ones blocking his view, and above him, the few pieces that haven't broken off the cave's ceiling are dangling dangerously on the verge of falling and causing a second rockslide. He takes a deep breath. The air is musty and stale, and though he can feel his chest now, he wish he didn't. The air gets filtered into lava, his lungs complain they were better off when he was suffocating.

_Drip. Drip. Drip. Get up._

Is dying supposed to be this much work?

He kneels before he manages to lift himself up. Shallow breaths and sharp pebbles digging into his palms, he glimpses under his broken lenses to his left, where the Dionesum was housed as a pool, and makes out nothing. Maybe his eyes don't try too hard to discern a hand or leg, some torn off fabric or a tuft of green hair that managed to escape. Maybe none of those things are there anymore. He doesn't need to know, he doesn't want to, so he takes his eyes away.

As a reflex or strong habit more than anything else, he raises his aching forearm and touches his covered right ear, the place where the intercom is installed in the cowl. He pauses, a short moment of finally acknowledging what's happened, the fog in his mind lifted, but his index finger ends up pressing the earpiece anyway, out of spite.

“Julia?”

Nothing comes from the other end, not even static, rendering the comm dead.

_“You shouldn't do this alone.”_

_“We'll need all the help we can get out there. We can't risk it.”_

_“He'll know, Bruce.”_

_“Dick has donned the cowl before. He knows how to move—how_ I _move. Yes, the Joker will know. He's smart, it'd be downright stupid to think otherwise. But not until I want him to.”_

_“He'll come for you. You'll be alone.”_

_“No, I won't. I'll have you.”_

When the salvaged Dionesum was being pulled up—when he _insisted_ she pull it up despite her wanting to wait for him to take a small dose—the first thing he thought of was the bat-signal. The glowing amber ball with the bat printed in the front was the last source of light he saw just as his world was about to go dark and he found it funny and he smiled even though his face hurt. Then, from next to him, he heard the Joker laughing for the first time after his repetitive chant ( _“No no no...”_ ), but this time it was bitter and watered-down and holding a grudge. It was human.

With his face down, back turned to the ceiling and with no way of seeing what Bruce was looking at, the Joker said, “I am sick and tired of the _irony_ always around you, Bats,” but then the cave came down and the joker card that was cutting through Bruce's left eye was dislodged and the blood that rushed down his cheek and trickled to his ear blocked his hearing and the Joker's muffled words didn't matter anymore. They were both dead. 

He doesn't find it as funny anymore but he laughs anyway. The rapid movements hurt him so much that he almost loses his balance again, yet he doesn't stop. Soon the open space humors him and joins in. For a few moments the echo gets loud enough to make him forget and, if he payed enough attention, he'd hear the _second_ distinct echo. But he doesn't, attention isn't what he cares about right now, so the two echos dance together, the tragedy turning into comedy.

When he manages to get down from the biggest pile of rocks with a pained smirk still on his lips, when the faded light of the outside world has gotten closer, he stops. He kneels abruptly on the hard cave floor, crawls to the closest corner and rests his back against the cold wet surface, a small tired sigh escaping his torn lips. There's a hint of content in that puff of breath. Listening to the inky space around him, his head tilts backwards. Blue eyes close, a different kind of black sets behind his eyelids. 

He'll get out, yes. But does it matter? It's peaceful in the dark.


End file.
